Alabama fans bask in back-to-back titles with a parade

Sunday

Jan 20, 2013 at 12:01 AM

TUSCALOOSA | They came from near and far, as close as Northport and as distant as Blount County and beyond.But the journey on this day wasn’t to cheer the football team they love to victory. They carried no worries that something — an ill-timed injury or an errant bounce of the ball — might douse their joy and send them home wondering “What if?”

By Jason MortonStaff Writer

TUSCALOOSA | They came from near and far, as close as Northport and as distant as Blount County and beyond.But the journey on this day wasn’t to cheer the football team they love to victory. They carried no worries that something — an ill-timed injury or an errant bounce of the ball — might douse their joy and send them home wondering “What if?”For the fans who began descending upon the University of Alabama campus under a clear, brisk Saturday in January, this visit was all about celebrating the accomplishments of a group of young men who wholeheartedly believe, just as they do in “The Process,” football coach Nick Saban’s phrase for building a championship team.Thousands of fans lined University Boulevard between Second Avenue and the Walk of Champions that leads to Bryant-Denny Stadium to lift their voices for the 2012 BCS national champion Alabama Crimson Tide.Some members of that team had helped bring three of the last four crystal football trophies back to Tuscaloosa. The players beamed smiles and waved back to the throngs. Fans screamed the players’ names after recognizing the numbers on the front of the players’ jerseys.Among the fans was Jamey McGowin of Millbrook, whose first year as principal at Stanhope Elmore High School was standout Crimson Tide cornerback Dee Milliner’s senior year as a high school student.McGowin searched the parading athletes for Milliner’s face, not unlike a parent would do for their own child. And when the two men saw one another, Milliner broke ranks to give his former principal a hug.“He’s the best high school football player I’ve ever seen in person,” said McGowin, who had ventured to Tuscaloosa with his family to celebrate the 18th birthday of this daughter, Lindsay, by treating her to Friday night’s victory over the LSU Tigers by the Crimson Tide’s other back-to-back national champions, the women’s gymnastics team.Turns out, the BCS celebration was a family event for most of those in attendance.And for some, it was a larger gathering than others.Brothers and lifelong Alabama fans Mark Cochran, 51, and Ron Cochran, 48, had their respective families in tow as they waited in the long line leading to the three of the four national championship trophies Alabama won by clobbering the Notre Dame Fighting Irish 42-14.Mark Cochran missed the 1992 celebration and the one after the 2009 season. But since he retired from the military and moved back to Alabama, he said he intends to not miss anymore.“Now I’m home and living in Huntsville,” Cochran said, “and I’m coming to everything.”His younger brother, though, did make the 1992 celebration, and he said that was just as sweet as the one he soaked up on Saturday.“I wasn’t going to miss it,”Ron Cochran said.The brothers’ connection to Alabama run deep, and the two men are proud that the years of their births coincided with prior national championship runs by legendary Alabama head coach Paul W. “Bear” Bryant.Mark Cochran was born in 1961 and his brother followed three years later. And Mark Cochran kept the bloodline tradition going when his son, Matt, now a UA student, was born in 1992, the year Gene Stallings led the Crimson Tide to its 12th national title.“When you’re an Alabama fan, you’re an Alabama fan from an early age,” Mark Cochran said.But not everyone taking part in the revelry on Saturday was an Alabama fan.There, standing stark against a sea of crimson and white, was Karen Killingsworth of Hayden in her orange-and-blue T-shirt commemorating the 2010 BCS title run of Auburn University.Killingsworth didn’t come to try and tarnish the Crimson Nation’s good time. Rather, she — as the only Auburn fan in her household — came to share the day with her husband, Perry, her daughter and one of her daughter’s friends.In fact, she said she was actually having a good time.“Everything as a whole,” Killingsworth said when asked what she found most impressive, “and I’m glad the girls are getting a chance to see it.”In addition to the parade, the trophy display and the chance to walk on the Bryant-Denny grass, the celebration also featured a large video screen at the edge of the Walk of Champions that showed a replay of the game that brought Alabama’s 15th national title to the Capstone.Watching almost every down was Steve Miller of Pike Road, who said he was watching the game for the first time since it aired Jan. 7.This time, Miller said, was much better than the first.“It’s much better now, because of the tradition, the domination and the atmosphere,” said Miller, 57, as he gestured to the swirling mass of fans around him. “It’s an honor to be able to celebrate this team, this tradition and coach (Nick) Saban and all the outstanding recruiting he has done.”

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